Forest and Stream 
FISHING AND HUNTING PRESIDENTS 
OF THE TWENTY-NINE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM WASH¬ 
INGTON TO HARDING, TWENTY-THREE WERE HUNTERS OR FISHERMEN 
By ALEXANDER STODDART 
and occasionally with a part 
of the catch. 
The trip to Valley Forge 
reported by the newspapers 
came as a result of the ad¬ 
journment of the Federal 
Convention assembled in Phil¬ 
adelphia during the summer 
of 1787, Washington being 
its President. The conven¬ 
tion had been in session for 
two months, discussing the 
proposed constitution and the 
najor work being accom¬ 
plished, the convention ap¬ 
pointed a committee of detail 
to whom they referred the re¬ 
sults of their previous action. 
Flow Washington spent this 
week is told in his diary as 
follows: 
“Monday, 30th July.—In 
company with Mr. Governr 
Morris went into the neigh¬ 
borhood of the Valley Forge 
to a Widow Moore’s a-fishing, 
at whose house we lodged. 
“Tuesday, 31st July.—Be¬ 
fore breakfast I rode to the 
Valley Forge and over the 
whole Cantonment & Works 
of the American Army in the 
Winter of 1777-8, and on my 
return to the Widow Moore’s 
found Mr. and Mrs. Rob. 
Morris. Spent the day there 
fishing, etc., & lodged at same 
place. 
Wednesday, August 1.—Re¬ 
turned abt 11 o’clock with the 
above company to Philadelphia. 
“Friday, 3d Aug., 1787.—Went up to 
Trenton on a fishing party with Mr. and 
Mrs. Robt. Morris & Govr Morris. 
Dined and lodged at Colo Sam Ogden’s. 
In the evening fished. 
“Saturday, 4th (Aug., 1787).—In the 
morning and between breakfast and 
dinner fished. Dined at Gen. Dickin¬ 
son’s and returned in the evening to 
Colo Ogden’s. 
“Sunday, 5th. (Aug., 1787).—Dined 
at Colo Ogden’s and about 4 o’clock set 
out for Philadelphia—halted an hour at 
Bristol and reached the city before 9 
o’clock.” 
As Washington has told so briefly, all 
too briefly, about that week’s a-fishing, 
and not at all about his feelings and im¬ 
pressions when he returned to visit 
Valley Forge, where the Continental 
Army spent the winter of 1777 and 
1778, where his army suffered cold and 
hunger because of the poverty of the 
Government and the incompetency of 
the Commissary Department, let us 
dwell further upon this flood mark of 
American history, when the tide was 
ebbing. 
It was here that Washington and 
* RACTICALLY all of 
L/ our Presidents have 
been fond of outdoor 
recreation, and all but 
six were devotees of the rod 
and gun. 
Two Presidents wrote books 
on the subject of fishing and 
hunting and were frequent 
contributors to the magazines 
—Grover Cleveland, who col¬ 
lected his articles and issued 
them between covers, calling 
them “Fishing and Shooting 
Sketches,” and Theodore 
Roosevelt, who began with 
his “Hunting Trips of a 
Ranchman” and thereafter 
wrote many books on the pur¬ 
suit of big-game animals and 
fishes. 
Without question Roosevelt 
was the greatest hunter of the 
Presidents, other Presidents 
confining themselves to hunt¬ 
ing in the United States, 
whereas the twenty-sixth 
President hunted big game in 
South America, Africa and 
Canada, there falling before 
his rifle practically all the im¬ 
portant game animals found in 
those countries. 
He was in danger often; in 
the Quebec wilds he was 
charged by an infuriated bull 
moose and only the power of TT , 
his gun and his ability to hit n erw0 ° 
the mark saved him from 
death. 
Probably the greatest of fishing Pres¬ 
idents was Grover Cleveland, twenty- 
second and twenty-fourth President; 
the next best fisherman being Chester 
Alan Arthur, his predecessor in office, 
who, up to within three years of his 
death, held the record of having killed 
the largest salmon in the Restigouche. 
The fact that no one of the many 
biographers of the first President has 
done justice to the character of Wash¬ 
ington, who was a fisherman among 
fishermen, led George H. Moore to go 
through George Washington’s diaries, 
which resulted in the publication, for 
private circulation, of a monograph en¬ 
titled “Washington as an Angler,” the 
study being dedicated to another good 
fisherman, Grover Cleveland. 
Cleveland read the book with interest 
and he wrote to Dr. Moore that from its 
perusal he was pleased to learn that the 
“only element of greatness heretofore 
unnoticed in the life of Washington is 
thus supplied.” 
He adds: “I am a little curious to 
know whether the absence of details as 
to the result of his fishing is owing to 
bad luck, a lack of toleration of fish 
stories at that time among anglers, or 
i Underwood 
Grover Cleveland swinging on a duck 
to the fact that even as to the number 
of fish he caught, the Father of his 
Country could not tell a lie.” 
The Washington diary, extracts of 
which Mr. Moore used for his study of 
Washington as an angler, covers the 
years of 1787 and 1789. The newspapers 
of that day stated that “on Monday 
last (July 30, 1787), his Excellency, 
George Washington, set out for Moore 
Hall, in order to visit his old quarters 
at Valley Forge.” 
For many years in this country, be¬ 
fore fishing became a respectable recrea¬ 
tion, and acknowledged as such, men 
with fishing proclivities not to be denied 
camouflaged their fishing trips by going 
off on “official business;” not that the 
Father of his Country had to do that, 
but others as devoted to angling as the 
first President have found it very con¬ 
venient to do so. It creates less talk. 
Now, however, recreation is regarded as 
a part of life that is essential to big 
business and happiness and no apology 
is necessary for the captain of industry, 
or an executive to indulge in his favorite 
pastime, his return visits being looked 
forward to with interest, for invariably 
they are accompanied by good yarns 
